Archive for the ‘Mike’s Rambling’ Category
We’ll Feel Good When He Stops
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
Watching Tiger Woods play golf in his 2011 debut reminds me of the old joke about the guy hitting his head against the wall. When asked why, he replies, “Because it feels so good when I stop.” Within three minutes of watching on Thursday I heard him drop the F-bomb and slam his club into the ground. Within 30 seconds of watching today, he slams his driver down on the tee box. He is a man who clearly hates what he’s doing. Why doesn’t he stop? He’s still got lots of money. He’s single again, free to chase waitresses and porn stars. Why doesn’t he do golf fans a favor and disappear?
And Now for a Little Culture
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
I haven’t written anything since spring, and my hordes of loyal fans have been beseeching me to get back in the game. Well, one fan, anyway. Well OK, the only fan, if you must know. And not so much beseeching as curmudgeonly grumbling. Anyway, I admit to my laziness. It’s not like I haven’t been writing. A few weeks ago I read in the paper about the upcoming Pemaquid Oyster Festival taking place in Damariscotta, Maine. It included oysters, oystering exhibits, and an oyster poetry contest. Contestants would read their poems aloud, with judges and audience reaction determining the winner. The only requirement was that the poem must contain the word “oyster.” A small prize would be awarded.
Well, we planned on going, and the contest stuck in my mind. I woke up in the middle of the night with a poem running through my head, so I got up early and wrote it down. As it turned out, on festival day the weather was lousy and we decided not to go. Here I was, stuck with what would undoubtedly have been the winning poem, but one so specialized it would be useless anywhere else. But my fan started nagging me, and I realized I could foist this goofy poem off as a blog posting. I am proud that it not only contains the word “oyster,” but rhymes it. Twice! My apologies to Dr. Suess, who was apparently my poetic inspiration as a child.
The Bravest Man
Throughout human history we’ve seen those brave souls
Who climbed all the mountains; who conquered the poles
Innovative world leaders, intrepid explorers
Policemen and firemen to face the world’s horrors
Doctors in labs, nuns in their cloister
But the bravest was he who first ate an oyster.
I picture him walking along on the shore
Spying these objects on the sea floor
And picking one up, he sees it’s a shell
Prying it open, he says, “What the hell?
This doesn’t look right, it’s all slimy and gray!”
But since he was starving he ate anyway.
His eyes open wide and he thinks, “It’s delicious!
Why waste all my energy hunting for fishes?
This tastes delightful; it tastes like the sea!
And I’m getting a charge from the Vitamin E!
It couldn’t be better; it couldn’t be moister.
I’ll give it a name; I’ll call it an oyster.”
His friends who were watching him ask, “Is it good?
Is it tasty to eat? Can we use it for food?”
Thinking quickly he answers, “Oh no, this won’t do;
This might be poison, it isn’t for you.
Please take my advice, this is no good at all.”
(While filling his bag with all he could haul.)
“I’ll get rid of these; I’ll go give them a toss.”
Then he scampered away to invent cocktail sauce.
Now get off my back.
Happy Birthday, Earth!
Posted by Mike | Filed under Mike's Rambling
Sure, your birth certificate says you are 4.6 billion years old, but who can picture such a number? It’s simpler to imagine that you were born at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, and that it is now midnight again, exactly one year later. You’ve accomplished so much in that time!
You spent three months just cooling off and letting water vapor condense into rain to fill your oceans. By about March 5th, you had already become home to single-celled life forms. You suffered your first environmental disaster in early June, when some organisms began releasing the toxic chemical oxygen into the atmosphere. Many life forms died, and others retreated to hidden places where the poison couldn’t reach. A few, however, learned to thrive, using the oxygen to produce energy. By August, eukaryotic cells with nuclei had developed, enabling even more complex life forms to evolve.
And evolve they did, into some amazing creatures. Around December 12th, the mighty dinosaurs appeared, to rule the planet until around 8:00 PM the day after Christmas when they mysteriously disappeared. This afternoon, December 31st, at about 7:14 PM, some strange-looking apes appeared, walking on two legs, and by 11:37 (23 minutes ago) they had evolved into us, homo sapiens. We have turned out to be an astoundingly industrious species. We built the pyramids at 11:59 and 36 seconds. A little over 1 ½ seconds ago, we invented the steam engine and started the Industrial Revolution. Since then we have built the modern world of today, with all its technological wonders, and have developed an overwhelming sense of confidence in our abilities.
You’ve had a bit of trouble holding your temperature steady over the past year; you’ve developed a chill at least four times that we know of. We think the earliest was around late May, then again just before Halloween, again at Thanksgiving, and finally as late as this afternoon, around 4:22 PM. During these cold spells, snow and ice covered much of your surface. In between these periods, your temperature rose enough to shrink the ice caps to a tiny area at the poles, leaving even Greenland and much of Antarctica ice-free. Since those regions are ice-covered today, you must still be recovering from your latest cold.
These changes haven’t gone unnoticed by us, and we have grown ever more sophisticated in our analysis of the climate. We now feel confident that we know what is going on. Seven tenths of a second ago, we declared that you were growing colder. Then, a little more than half a second ago, we corrected ourselves and pointed out that the temperature was getting warmer. Less than a quarter of a second ago, we recognized our mistake and said no, you were actually growing colder, and perhaps we should spread a layer of black carbon over your ice caps to warm things up. Then, about one tenth of a second ago, Al Gore straightened us out and said not only was the climate getting warmer, it was our fault! For a while, we called this “Global Warming.” Unfortunately, our scientists now tell us that you have actually cooled off a bit over the past five one-hundredths of a second, so we now call it “Climate Change.” But we are sure it’s still our fault.